The one thing that could transform our apologetics activity is applying the Golden Rule. Take time to imagine how you would want other people to talk to us about their beliefs. Perhaps even put yourself in that position, inviting a Muslim, Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness to share their faith with you.

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One must not confuse and
commingle law and grace: God’s commands with God’s promises (Romans 11:6). The
law is not just the Old Testament inasmuch as the Old Testament contains law;
furthermore, grace is not just the New Testament for the New Testament contains
law. The law demands works and accuses. The law commands and demands. It’s what
God expects out of His creatures in our thoughts, words, and works. For it is
not the ten recommendations, it is the Ten Commandments. It is rigorous. The
law doesn’t say just do the best you can. God does not grade on a curve. The
final requires perfection or one does not enter heaven. It demands one hundred
percent, every moment, in thought, word, and deed. The good news is Christ has
expiated the transgressions against the law for His people by grace through
faith. The greatest good news is that Christ has made satisfaction for the
sins, the mistakes, and the commandment breaking of His people.

Miracles are more common than we think. In this interview, Strobel shares astounding accounts of healings and other phenomena that simply cannot be explained away by naturalistic causes. He speaks about his phenomenal new book "The Case for Miracles." But he does not only talk about "miracles" Lee also tackles the tough question "What about miracles that don’t happen? If God can intervene in the world, why doesn’t he do it more often to relieve suffering?
One of the best interviews on the topic of Miracles! Don't miss it!

I can still see the young woman in her late 20s, crouched in the fetal position as she began to tell her story of abuse. Only months into my first pastorate and unaware of such stories, my wife and I were dropped into the deep end of the pool as we listened to our new friend. In barely audible whispers she recounted how her abuser instinctually sensed her vulnerability following a traumatic experience. Then came the gifts, the attention, the flattery, and the confusing physical contact.
In my naïveté, I expected the horror of the story to be measured by the level of sexual intimacy this married, adult predator forced upon his teenaged victim. I thought this was a story about sex. It was not. This was a story about power.
I don’t remember being warned by other pastors about the temptations of power. I knew to stay far away from misusing the other members of the triad—money and sex. But there were no cautionary tales about power. To be fair, financial and sexual transgressions typically involve more concrete, measurable actions. When it comes to power, no bell rings when scriptural arguments turn manipulative or when authority meant for protection is leveraged to mute the vulnerable.

“People need meaningful relationships with members of the opposite sex, and they need them to be safe, honoring, and full of integrity.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/its-not-billy-graham-rule-or-bust.html …

We have an exciting new job role here at @ZachariasTrust as our Office Administrator... http://www.zachariastrust.org/office-administrator …
Do you have a warm and welcoming personality? Would you like to be the face of our reception, meeting and greeting people? Then why not come and join our team! pic.twitter.com/iBxPnrQjXn

In the same way, the people in Hebrews 11 trusted God because they had good reason to. You can read about how God revealed Himself to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, and 18. As a result, Abraham believed His promises. Further, God revealed His righteousness and justice to Abraham when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and He demonstrated His faithfulness and power when He fulfilled His promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah long after it was naturally possible. God didn’t leave His people without reason to trust Him; He interacted with Abraham and his descendants after him, giving evidence of His reality, His character, and His trustworthiness.

A study of the different anatomical features of this fossil and comparison with other fossil odonates revealed a very incongruent pattern of similarities. Such homoplasy is a ubiquitous phenomenon in systematic biology and does not readily align with a hierarchical system required by evolutionary classification. While surprising from the perspective of common ancestry, such incongruences would not be surprising from the perspective of common design. This suggests that the currently ruling paradigm of cladistic classification based on assumed common ancestry should be reconsidered in favor of a traditional phenetic classification based on maximum similarity.

My friends, let us look this question in the face. If there is anything at all in the religion of Christ, give everything for it. If there is nothing in it—if it is a myth, if our mothers who have prayed over us have been deceived, if the praying people of the last [2,000] years have been deluded—let us find it out. The quicker the better. If there is nothing in the religion of Christ, let us throw it over and eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. If there is no devil to deceive us, no hell to receive us, if Christianity is a sham, let us come out and say so. I hope to live to see the time when there will be only two classes in this world—Christians and [unbelievers]—those who take their stand bravely for Him and those who take their stand against Him. This idea of men standing still and saying, “Well, I don’t know, but I think there must be something in it,” is absurd. If there is anything in it, there is everything in it. – D.L. Moody

We have just reviewed a few of a number of converging lines of argument supporting the view that it is reasonable to take Mark’s Gospel as historical. The evidence is actually stronger than for many of the works upon which Greek or Roman history is founded. If it were not for the extraordinary subject matter of Mark’s Gospel, it is conceivable that there would not even be debate among historians as to whether or not it is reliable.

It’s surreal, but you get used to it. Yesterday I was involved in negotiating email contact between an ID proponent in academia and a professor who’s not an ID proponent, quite the opposite, but who wanted to know the identity of the former so that they could be in touch. Because the ID proponent is not safe in his position (and I’m using the pronoun “his” in the generic sense; it could as well be a woman), I needed to insist on strict confidentiality.

There are a few voices out there that say my work is misguided because I care about apologetics more than the Gospel. I shouldn’t be teaching on subjects like Islam, homosexuality, and abortion. They say if I start talking to a non-Christian, I shouldn’t bring up apologetics, but rather tell them about the Gospel.

Praying for America personally, in your church, and in a National Day of Prayer observance on Thursday, May 3, is a responsibility of each Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ. This video tool is a way to pray for our country. Use...
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Which one is the proper definition of Atheism? ————— Atheism: lack of belief in the existence of God. or Atheism: the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. FREE eBook Chapter Download: http://bit.ly/SFG_CP1

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

Play can become frivolous, but it is not itself frivolous. Play is divine. God not only created play, but we can say that the act of creation was in some sense an act of play itself. Play is creational, productional, relational, restrictional, and immortal. The cosmos was created as play, and it was created for play, a grand theater for our sporting. And you indeed were made to play.

NEW YORK, NY—While almost nobody is willing to defend Bill Cosby any longer after he was convicted of sexual assault Thursday, the former television star and comedian found an ally in abortion provider Planned Parenthood.

While many may find those words to be rather severe , they actually sounded familiar to me when I first read the GQ article. As an atheist, I can remember saying something similar to a Christian co-worker. But that all changed as I began to investigate the Bible using the skills I had developed as a detective. I've now come to appreciate the Bible above all other texts (religious or otherwise), largely because the editors of GQ are wrong :

I think of the sinful tendencies of my own heart. I recently came back from an annual conference where theologians and biblical scholars, both conservative and liberal, come together for a week of listening to papers, buying books at terrific prices, meeting with publishers about future projects, and reuniting with old friends. Every year, I’m overjoyed by the work of the academic guild, especially the work done in the service of the church. But I’m also saddened by the worldly pride that accompanies such academic festivities—the posturing of the elite, the claims of institutional pride, the competitive quests for academic glory. This academic culture can easily creep into the church, but it’s not just a problem I see in others. I see it in myself, in the depths of my own soul. Like those misled scholars, I am tempted to take pride in a degree I received, a university I attended, the letters that come after my name, or the books that have my name on them or in them. I, too, am tempted to forget my former existence in Adam where I was a nobody, and that “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor.

Christianity and Darwinism have very different understandings of the nature and causes of war. However, beneath the surfaces, there are some surprising similarities, not the least a debt to Saint Augustine’s claims about original sin. This talk uncovers these and other pertinent facts, arguing that we are not dealing with a religion versus science debate but more a religion versus religion debate.

The biblical take on exercise is not “Life is short; let your body go.” Rather, with God’s revealed truth ringing in our ears, we say, “Life is too short to not harness the body God gave me.” Our assignment in this age is a vapor. We are “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Too much is at stake, and our days are too few, to limp our way through by not leveraging our bodies (as we’re able) as the gifts from God they are.

"When the time comes for you to address the abuse that will cause upheaval in your community, remember that the weight of your advocacy for the vulnerable is much less than the millstone Jesus promises for those who sacrifice the weak." https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/leaders-talk-power-protect-vulnerable/ …

I've been in San Diego at an @OpenDoors event, where I spoke on Luther last night and on my Miracles book this morning. But guess who performed tonight?? Did you guess @StevenCurtis Chapman? You did? Because if you did, you were right! pic.twitter.com/kvJTBIYn0e

Saying ‘Let’s not talk about religious freedom’ is not the equivalent of Jesus standing before Pilate and saying ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ It’s more akin to Pilate standing before Jesus and saying, ‘I don’t want to deal with this issue right now.’ https://thegspl.co/2vQJzzb

For some it was an excruciating, toe-curling experience. Conservatives were aghast when Wolf turned to the subject of abortion. She said of vice-president Mike Pence: “He thinks abortion is murder. Which first of all don’t knock it till you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it, you gotta get that baby out of there. And yeah, sure, you can groan all you want, I know a lot of you are very anti-abortion, you know, unless it’s the one you got for your secret mistress.”

These are the stories of five ordinary women — Sarah Edwards, Lilias Trotter, Gladys Aylward, Esther Ahn Kim, and Helen Roseveare — who trusted in their extraordinary God as he led them to do great things for his kingdom.

Even though thousands of Jewish people embraced Jesus in the early days of the Christian church, today millions reject the Messiah. We should have a zeal to reach those Jews who have not yet received the gift of everlasting life....

I think of the sinful tendencies of my own heart. I recently came back from an annual conference where theologians and biblical scholars, both conservative and liberal, come together for a week of listening to papers, buying books at terrific prices, meeting with publishers about future projects, and reuniting with old friends. Every year, I’m overjoyed by the work of the academic guild, especially the work done in the service of the church. But I’m also saddened by the worldly pride that accompanies such academic festivities—the posturing of the elite, the claims of institutional pride, the competitive quests for academic glory. This academic culture can easily creep into the church, but it’s not just a problem I see in others. I see it in myself, in the depths of my own soul. Like those misled scholars, I am tempted to take pride in a degree I received, a university I attended, the letters that come after my name, or the books that have my name on them or in them. I, too, am tempted to forget my former existence in Adam where I was a nobody, and that “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor.

Do you struggle with fear, anxiety or worry? We sat down with @ReveAdamHamilton to learn how we can develop sustaining spiritual practices to help overcome our struggles. Listen Now: https://ctly.st/2HzP3Qx

God uses our talents to test our unselfishness. You have to decide in life for whom or what you’re going to live. You’re either going to live a self-centered, miserly life or you’re going to live for something greater than yourself — the Kingdom of God.

Jesus also wept over the calamity of sin. As God the Son who had come into the world to destroy the devil’s works (1 John 3:8), Jesus was about to deliver death its deathblow (1 Corinthians 15:26). But sin grieves God deeply, and so do the wages of sin: death (Romans 6:23). And ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, he had endured sin’s horrific destruction. Death had consumed almost every human being he had created (all except Elijah and Enoch). It had taken Lazarus, and it would take him again before it was all over. Tears of anger and longing were mixed with Jesus’s tears of grief.

A better approach might be to assert that the only reason why we have not observed abiogenesis is that it so rarely happens. That is a logical possibility, but it has no empirical evidence to support it. Belief in abiogenesis is the reason why so much attention is given to the search for evidence for life elsewhere in the universe. This search takes many forms, such as programs leading to the discovery of extrasolar planets, planets orbiting other stars. So far, we have found about 2,000 other planets, but none are clearly earth-like, that is, suitable for life. Another manifestation for the search for life elsewhere is the seemingly never-ending missions to Mars. Each mission to Mars reveals no evidence for life on Mars (and frequently shows just the opposite to be the case), which is followed by the next mission that appears to be based upon the premise that we just haven’t looked in the right parts of Mars yet. Then there is SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. SETI operates by listening for radio broadcasts from planets orbiting other stars. The first SETI program was in 1960.

Sam Storms: “We quench the Holy Spirit when we rely decisively on any resource other than the Holy Spirit for anything we do in life and ministry.” https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/seven-ways-to-quench-the-spirit …

"I wonder if you could see yourself tonight, as a 22 year old, as an arrow flaming by the spirit of God in the hands of a merciful God. And you could say to him, 'Grip. Draw. Anchor. Aim. Release. And launch my life somewhere for your glory!'" - @louiegiglio pic.twitter.com/i9OVjC3xUQ

6) The renewed mind takes seriously the affirmation and confirmation of the local church. It is essential that you be part of a local church. This is the normal way of being a Christian, and it is the only way I know anybody can go to the mission field and know what to do once he got there. Because it is churches that we want to come into being so that believers have a way to be discipled there. Part of the experience of the local church is to confirm our gifts and to confirm our desires and to confirm our skills and to confirm our compassion. Without that confirmation, we will tend to be loners who very easily mistake God’s leading.

But most importantly, there's no indication in the Bible that one can truly be a Christian while regularly separating from God's people—the church. The church is where all of the "one anothers" of Scripture (e.g., "Love one another," "pray for one another," "bear with one another") are lived out. And the Apostle John warns that we cannot claim to love God if we reject each other, adding, "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:12).